Would You Pay $4,200 For a Bottle of Chanel N°5?

So let’s say you wake up this morning, spontaneously buy a lottery ticket and win several thousand dollars. How ever will you spend it all? On a resort vacation? The perfect spring wardrobe? Or, perhaps, on a giant bottle of Chanel N°5?

If you think the last option sounds a little crazy, you’re not alone: ever since the brand released the 30-ounce "Grand Extrait" size of its iconic fragrance, people have been debating its value. From a logical standpoint, there isn’t much. Smell fades from perfume after a few years; that’s just long enough for one person to use up a standard one-ounce bottle. So even those with Marilyn Monroe-like devotion to the scent would be hard pressed to use up all that gold-colored liquid in such a short span of time. Forget about just wearing it to bed—one would have to bathe in the stuff to get through it.

Still, as Market Watch reporter Charles Passy argues in the WSJ video embedded below, the appeal of the purchase lies more in peacocking than practicality. "This is not really for using. This is a showpiece," he explains. "This is a $4,200 thing to put on your mantle, or your dresser—or wherever you want to put it—that says, I got a lot of Chanel."

If you want a lot of Chanel, click here to order your nearly two pound decanter-full today.